Wikisource talk:WikiProject DNB/Archive 2

Category:Problematic
I'm just getting up to speed on Category:Problematic, which currently has 17 DNB pages. If that is to be used as a general place for cleanup of scans, it is probably going to need its own subcategory subsystem and a bit of infrastructure. I suggest systematic use of discussion pages, in reference to the various kinds of issues such as are discussed under the previous topic. Charles Matthews (talk) 10:34, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Sure, however, for specific editions, we can manage it by adding notes to the respective Index_talk pages. We can also look at DNB IndexPages to get an overall picture of where the problematic pages are situated.  I also remember someone showing me how you could search for the union of two categories. billinghurst (talk) 11:29, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Treatment if "redirect" articles?
Have we decided how to treat the "redirect" articles in the original DNB? I just added Osborne, Edward (DNB00). Its predecessor (see Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 42.djvu/290) is is a "redirect." Should I create an article for Osborne, Dorothy (DNB00), or not? if not, what should I use as the "previous" for the Osborne, Edward (DNB00) article? -Arch dude (talk) 02:39, 9 January 2010 (UTC)


 * This point has not been decided. My view is this: let's not include any redirect pages in the volume ToCs. Let's not include them in the "previous" or "next" fields, either; what is helpful is to go directly to the previous or next full biography. Where they can fit in is as linked from the wikified Volume Index pages. In other words, in creating hyperlinks from the Index pages at the ends of each volume, there is the scope to create a wikilink to a short page for these various types of redirects. Charles Matthews (talk) 10:03, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Blind DNB links
Have been introduced to our first blind DNB link. Where they did a qv in an earlier volume, and subsequently it would seem that they have decided against the biography.
 * Machin, John (d.1761) (DNB00) has a qv to Dr. (Alexander) Torriano ✅

We need some thinking for how we wish to handle this.

I don't think that we should make the qv wikilinks disappear, and feel that we could look to having a page without any body text, with a standard DNB00 header, though with something in the note field that says something along the lines "while another DNB biography links here, the biography was not undertaken in the published volumes 1-63." — billinghurst  sDrewth  00:08, 7 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Preferably with something added: "The wikilink to this page is a placeholder. Feel free to improve it with an internal or external link". And we should probably have a project page somewhere noting the blind links, and so that such changes can be logged, to avoid duplicated efforts. Charles Matthews (talk) 10:32, 7 February 2010 (UTC)


 * There it is probably easiest to create a maintenance category, do we use Category:DNB blind linked page, and slap it onto Category:DNB? If the addition is any more than simple I think that we should template whatever we have there so we can more easily update the words. Should we create a page as a pilot? billinghurst  sDrewth  12:48, 7 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Shouldn't we both keep it simple, and avoid any mission creep within Wikisource? I propose that we simply have one page (a subpage of this project) to which such blind links (and this may be the only one) would direct. If anything more than that is need then what am I missing? Jan 1 naD  (talk • contrib) 14:49, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Like it centurion! Make them redirects to the page, and we can add each bio name to a compile list as we find them. As redirects also easy to undo if we find it in a weird spot. billinghurst  sDrewth  16:34, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
 * OK, can do it all on one project page if the cross-namespace linking isn't considered weirdness. Charles Matthews (talk) 08:41, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I cannot see why we cannot do it in the main ns, make it a specific subpage of DNB, it keeps the work together. Not perfect perfection, however, it should do. billinghurst  sDrewth  12:27, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Set it up then, can be moved whenever. Charles Matthews (talk) 18:08, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Please make it clear that these are blind links (i.e. to articles that were never added to the DNB) rather than redlinks (i.e. to articles that WERE added to the DNB but which have not yet been transcribes into the Wikisource DNB.) We will likely need to re-emphasize this to new contributors occasionally. I recommend a brief note for readers on the new page itself. and a longer note for contributors on its talk page. -Arch dude (talk) 14:37, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Blind Link adds from Volume 28 & 33 Found these over the last month.
 * Hurd, Richard (DNB00) - William Weston (author) who published book in 1747 resolved
 * Hunter, William (1718-1783) (DNB00) - Francis Sandys (Georgian architect) ✅
 * Hunter, Andrew (DNB00) - contains Robert Walker (1709-1802) but does not match the description found in this version of Walker, Robert (DNB00) article.✅
 * Lindsay, David (1551?-1610) (DNB00) - John Lawson (16th c. educator).✅
 * Hume, Thomas (DNB00) - Gustavus Hume (Irish surgeon) wiki link to Hume street, Dublin.✅

The following two currently have only Wiki articles available. JamAKiska (talk) 23:15, 28 May 2010 (UTC) All of these Blind links are now red links. Those with wiki links have been moved to [q.v.] symbol.JamAKiska (talk) 16:42, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Edward Howard, 9th Duke of Norfolk Howard, Walter (DNB00)✅
 * Sir Edward Ponynges Howard, Edward (1477?-1513) (DNB00) already resolved
 * Ibbotson, Henry (DNB00) contains blind link to William Joseph Hooker. The [q.v.] links to vol 27 article on his son, William Jackson Hooker, currently unwritten. JamAKiska (talk) 22:06, 31 May 2010 (UTC) looks like a [sic.] error, so marked as so.
 * Iestin ab Gwrgant (DNB00), blind link to Howel ab Morgan. Should be a peer of Gruffydd ap Rhydderch.  JamAKiska (talk) 01:56, 1 June 2010 (UTC) ✅
 * Griffin, Benjamin (DNB00), Vanbleek or Van Bluck. JamAKiska (talk) 14:58, 24 June 2010 (UTC) ✅
 * Herbert, Philip (1584-1650) (DNB00), John de Critz, a painter. JamAKiska (talk) 13:29, 4 July 2010 (UTC) link fixed
 * Herbert, St. Leger Algernon (DNB00), Herbert, John Alexander Cameron, war correspondent. JamAKiska (talk) 14:02, 4 July 2010 (UTC) link fixed
 * Gordon, James Bentley (DNB00), Thomas Neeve, nephew of Richard Bentley (scholar). JamAKiska (talk) 19:06, 8 August 2010 (UTC) ✅
 * Mitchel, Jonathan (DNB00), Rev. John Cotton (d. 1652). JamAKiska (talk) 13:39, 31 August 2010 (UTC) Included in 1901 edition of the 2nd supplement.JamAKiska (talk) 00:52, 1 October 2010 (UTC) redirected to DNB01


 * Montagu, Edward (d.1557) (DNB00), John Roper, AG to Henry VIII.JamAKiska (talk) 21:29, 2 September 2010 (UTC)✅
 * Masquerier, John James (DNB00), John Hoffner, fellow painter. JamAKiska (talk) 03:21, 20 September 2010 (UTC) ✅
 * Lucas, Charles (d.1648) (DNB00), John Lucas, Lord, older surviving (?) brother. JamAKiska (talk) 20:14, 25 September 2010 (UTC) ✅
 * Love, Nicholas (DNB00), Andrew Broughton, regicide. JamAKiska (talk) 02:13, 28 September 2010 (UTC) ✅

I have created Blind link target page (DNB00) to get moving on this, and linked one page to it. No header so far. Charles Matthews (talk) 10:06, 29 October 2012 (UTC)


 * I have moved the page to Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Blind links which makes it a subpage of the original work, rather than sitting as a top level biography. Can I note that it is a subpage of the DNB00, which may or may not prove the best place rather than under the overarching name, and that depends whether there are any blind links in the later supplementary or errata editions. I also believe that we should leave the link as a standard in line links DNB lkpl and that from that page it can be redirected to the catchall page eg.

At the catchall page I have added a ToC and added entries with

so they know exactly where they are landing, plus this gives us an opportunity (if we so choose) to direct the person onwards. After I have finished my other round of article <-> author link maintenance I will try to move to this task. — billinghurst  sDrewth  10:23, 10 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I have noted the new page on WikiProject DNB. Charles Matthews (talk) 08:37, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
 * As discussed elsewhere, James Wilson (1765–1821) → James Wilson (anatomist) is added. I think that we could design it into a table (template the rows to make it easy) that includes a link to enWP. The discussion is a little on formatting  ... keep it simple, two columns, label and enWP, or space it a little more. — billinghurst  sDrewth  15:39, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

WikiProject DNB/Wikification
Trying to grasp the nettle of what we mean by saying that articles should be hyperlinked. Couple of points. The "blind links" discussion just above this should be referenced by this new project page, mentioning what is to be done about the qvs that can't be resolved. And there is the possibility that some wikilinks should run to a disambiguation page, to give the reader a choice of references rather than picking out one. This is also something to mention on the page, depending on what we think. Charles Matthews (talk) 09:54, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
 * The disambig page is a good idea. Better than my (unpublished) thought that something like [Abercorn Earls of. See Hamilton] should simply point to the contents page that lists the Hamilton articles. Jan 1 naD  (talk • contrib) 10:12, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
 * What is said at Style guide is not particularly well adapted to reference texts (the common experience). In practical terms it doesn't seem to annoy anyone to create a dab page about a given topic, including reference work articles with closely-related titles. Linking to such pages is what I had in mind. Your idea can be refined by using anchor to set up the "Hamilton" anchor on that page. I actually just don't know where we stand on using dab pages more systematically, for example disambiguating "Hamilton Earls of Abercorn". Discussions on general principles seem to turn out inconclusively. Charles Matthews (talk) 12:02, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
 * To annotate this discussion, there is a general discussion at WS:S about use of a namespace to collate topic pages (person/pace/other). To also note that as I have been working on a couple of biographical works, I have been starting some disambiguation pages to manage such occurrences. An example is Adrain, Robert. — billinghurst  sDrewth  15:20, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

The identified issue with M's tool
Wikisource DNB links to Magnus Manske's statistics and maintenance tool. (The detailed readout is now more complicated than in the past, because the /DNB author subpages are causing some unproblematic pages to register in both of the main cleanup lists.) As an interim measure, why don't we transclude the subpages back to the top level of the author space. It keeps the page smaller, subsidiary, yet brings them back to the front and away hopefully available to Magnus's toolserver script. At least worth consideration. — billinghurst  sDrewth  15:47, 22 February 2010 (UTC)


 * OK, could try it on a small sample. I should mention the slightly embarrassing (for me) glitch meaning that the tool picks up a couple of Catholic Encyclopedia pages. I was tinkering with CE13 as an adaptation of DNB00 and never finished changing over some of the categories. Charles Matthews (talk) 16:00, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Hah, that isn't even trying! The other thing that we could look to see if we can leverage a tool that ThomasV was building. Discussion at User talk:Beeswaxcandle, as I think that there is some potential there. — billinghurst  sDrewth  06:56, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Article names in natural order as on WP?
I'm new to DNB. Is there a present or future plan to have article names in natural order as on WP? Otherwise when I Google, for example, for "Robert Murray M'Cheyne" (in quotes) I am never going to find the relevant DNB page unless he happens to be mentioned under that name in the text of the article. I Google for people's names a lot by this method.--PeterR (talk) 10:57, 6 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm not a fan of inverted name order generally, since it doubles (at least) the time for searching any database if one even remembers to do a second search. On the other hand the convention is established here, so that the natural solution is to create redirects. Which could be done systematically at some point: the project is really too big/long to say when we might get round to that, and too laborious to be prescriptive in the sense of saying that "redirects must be created as we go along".


 * On the bright side, once there is a Wikipedia link on an article, that will be in "natural order", and therefore should be picked up by search engines, so the business isn't hopeless. It is reasonable to ask how articles will actually be found, and the answer is like "they should be created with at least four incoming wikilinks anyway, and in many cases with a link from Wikipedia; and we shall be wikifying the text of the DNB articles so that over time there will be other links in, reflecting the DNB qv structure and other occurrences". I hope that is a fair answer to the concern. Charles Matthews (talk) 11:38, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I think the most compelling argument you made is that our link to the WP article by itself introduces the appropriate searchable text. when a WP article does nto yet exist, perhaps we could figure out a way to add the "natural order" name in a non-displayed field for use by web crawlers? Many of our subjects actually have multiple "natural" names (e.g., Duke Wellington) which could also be added as hidden search terms. -Arch dude (talk) 23:06, 8 March 2010 (UTC)


 * We could use the "extra notes" field to display fuller names, since our title convention is "minimal", while in some cases the useful name might be quite complicated: I was struck by the case of Savile, Thomas (DNB00) which begins as "SAVILE, THOMAS, first Viscount Savile of Castlebar in the peerage of Ireland, second Baron Savile of Pontefract, and first Earl of Sussex". I don't know quite what that proves, though. "Thomas Savile, 1st Earl of Sussex" is the WP title, and very sensible too. Perhaps there is a maintenance task associated with Category:DNB No WP, along the lines you suggest; that category is suddenly becoming big, for various reasons. Charles Matthews (talk) 06:53, 9 March 2010 (UTC)


 * The correct answer for searches is probably none of the above. Metadata is the appropriate answer, and utilising future renditions of the mediawiki software to organise the work. How we seed works to get extra terms as indicated above, it will be interesting to see how will eventuate, and we have brought it to the attention of developers. That said, I don't think that the concept of surname, firstname is that foreign, especially when one considers its relationship to DEFAULTSORT. — billinghurst  sDrewth  10:28, 9 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Worth saying also, in reply to the original query, that the WP onsite search is ahead of the game here: for example Thomas Savile searched does show the WS page in a box. Charles Matthews (talk) 11:52, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

An awkward one
Sion Llywelyn (DNB00) is proving elusive (vol. 52). It is a duplicate of another article to be seen at Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 34.djvu/28, as Llywelyn of Llangewydd (DNB00), a.k.a. Llywelyn Sion, and for that reason, presumably, occurs in no edition after the first (they caught this by 1904). The page of the unique scan is Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 52.djvu/327, which is badly corrupted, but you can see the initials J.E.L. above Sion Lleyn (DNB00). The Fenwick handbook, based on the 22 volume edition, denies that this article exists. It's only a short article, but it may need someone with the physical original volume 52 to fill this gap. Charles Matthews (talk) 19:23, 1 April 2010 (UTC) Completed...JamAKiska (talk) 02:55, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

+1. Charles Matthews (talk) 07:10, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

A listings automation issue
It is pleasant to be able to announce that we shall reach the milestone of 5000 DNB articles shortly. Another milestone relates to Category:DNB contributors with incomplete listings, in other words author pages not having a full list of DNB articles: this is down to 100 authors (out of a notional 683 - there are a few author pages for the DNB not yet created, but they are negligible for the listing issue). Barring various kinds of error, we are down to the authors who were prolific (more than 50 articles). I can do some more on this, but the longest lists are many hundreds.

I have been thinking along these lines: with listing complete by author, wouldn't it be possible to have some automatic way to scrape the names from the author pages, put them in alphabetical order, and then create volume ToCs in that way? The listing by volume issue is at most one third done at present. There are some points about the results you'd get (disambiguation is not guaranteed but with a list showing the duplicates can be elucidated by finding which authors link to a name, and also ASCII order isn't exactly right for the DNB ordering by dates); but work by hand on rough lists would be quite reasonable to handle these matters. Technically the author pages should all carry DNB contributor and related templates, and the relevant list would be enclosed in DNB lkpl or DNB link.

I find this attractive not just because if it works it would save a great deal of typing, but actually it could be done in pieces (a few volumes or initial letters at a time). It would be a reason and motivstion to get the very long listings done piecemeal. Charles Matthews (talk) 16:04, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Stats
I have just updated WikiProject DNB/Statistics for June. There has been a gradual accretion of numbers to track. Now that we are finishing volumes, where should we record progress on completed volumes, and completed letters of the alphabet? These are probably the most conventional measures, for a project such as this, together with the headline number of articles (which is now close to 20% - we should get an accurate number of DNB00 articles, which total around 27,000). Charles Matthews (talk) 09:40, 2 June 2010 (UTC)


 * The Fenwick handbook says 27,326 articles are DNB00, disgreeing with Sidney Lee's Statistical Account. So we have done 19.8% by that measure. NB that the articles generally get longer, on average, in later volumes. Charles Matthews (talk) 09:45, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
 * It is also likely that the shorter articles will be done first, so the proportion of text inserted is probably less than the proportion of articles.--Longfellow (talk) 20:35, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
 * That may be, depending on how people work, but I doubt it is really significant (the very short articles are not so interesting, and may well be ignored by anyone who isn't going through systematically). The average or "normal" (median) article is about one page of DNB; my impression, working through letter S, is that the really scanty articles are fewer, probably because the team of authors by then had enough experts in all the required fields. Anyway as the project progresses, it will become more possible to extract information. Gillian Fenwick calls the DNB "a fascinating subject, barely documented to date". Charles Matthews (talk) 07:02, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I would also reflect that I typeset pages, not articles, so there will also be lots of part pages waiting for the remaining parts. We could look at the number of proofread pages, though in the earlier period, there was more of a tendency to not use the progress markers. — billinghurst  sDrewth  10:12, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Shouldn't really get hung up on numbers: extrapolation says this is a three-year project now at the current rate of progress, and that is indicative enough. Consolidation will take in already-done text in the natural course of things. Once the articles are there for DNB00, DNB01 is another 5%. Then DNB12 is also possible. I'm interested in tracking the various referencing and cross-linking issues because they form a part of the bigger picture, as well as motivations. Creating all those author pages was part of fighting initial inertia and getting some momentum, too. I was asking about how to display the "headline figures" mainly because the project's front page hasn't up till now made a point of announcing progress, while we are reaching one or two milestones. Charles Matthews (talk) 10:37, 3 June 2010 (UTC)


 * We can always link to http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Special:IndexPages?key=Dictionary+of+National+Biography

British Museum
See Scriptorium for what this is all about; and WikiProject DNB/British Museum where I'm marking the project's card about author most relevant to us. Basically my list shows that 25 out of 35 author pages for writers who worked at the British Museum are DNB authors. Charles Matthews (talk) 20:03, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Linking from the Wikipedia page on the DNB
I have left a note on w:Talk:Dictionary of National Biography saying I intend to link from the Wikipedia article to volume ToCs here, as we finish up the volumes. Currently the links run to archive.org versions. This is partly prompted by discovering that Dictionary of National Biography here rates only at a lowly #36 in a google search for "Dictionary of National Biography". Our efforts could be more prominent. Charles Matthews (talk) 10:10, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Where the DNB errs
Following a discussion on my talk page about the DNB's mistakes, I have put together WikiProject DNB/Errors and errata. Charles Matthews (talk) 12:06, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

More on author pages
I'm working through listing the first edition articles on author pages, and should be done with it some time in August. At which point there will be some very long lists around. There have been previous proposals and discussions about the use of subpages. Leaving that aside for the moment - having analytical lists is of interest since it ties up with the "missing article" drive on WP - my current thinking is that for all longer lists we should use a collapsible template on the author page. Such things exist here, e.g. British legislation lists. Taking "long" to mean 50+, there would be just over 100 to create; if it means 20+ it is more like 160.

Therefore I'm asking the more technically-minded DNBers to look into the syntax issue here. As I understand it, enWS doesn't have a standard off-the-shelf navbox we could use, as WP does. For the author pages, a simple list of article links with DNB lkpl is most of what is required; we should allow for the possibility of DNB01 and later editions, too, and probably for an alphabetical breakdown for the really long listings.

Thoughts? I'm no expert, but coding up a generic navbox should benefit the site as a whole. Charles Matthews (talk) 07:45, 8 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Coding a box shouldn't be a killer, though, not anything that I have done. Let us put aside the number to make, and what it takes to do as I see that as least of a concern, compared to 63 volumes! 100s of authors, etc.
 * Let's explore what you/we want to show.

Other bits
 * 1 box, or boxes within; thinking possibility of different boxes for different groupings, or different boxes for
 * multiple columns or straight; if replicating the subpage tables, we wanting wrapped columns? I suppose that is "what data are you wanting to show?"
 * (thought) in a toggle of a collapsed list, I would think that we would not want the length of the toggled space to be larger than the depth of a screen, allowing people to toggle without scrolling.
 * always simpler more likely to be more compliant across browsers
 * agree that subpages doesn't really work well for us
 * — billinghurst  sDrewth  10:45, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

To clarify a bit: my first thoughts were to use just a fairly standard middot format for most of the boxes. So that if it's a sub-50 author such as Author:James Bass Mullinger, you click and then see a list of the article names with middot separation, several to a line. The assumption is that most readers will scan down to the author they want (probably having been brought there by a search), and click. For the authors with longer lists, I think a single block would be less suitable, and there should be alphabetical division as on Author:Sidney Lee. Charles Matthews (talk) 13:04, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Grand Program(me) for Infrastructure
I have raised some of this in bits and pieces in previous threads. I now have a target date of September for trying to address some of the remaining big infrastructural issues (i.e. pretty much everything that isn't proofreading or adding links). It seems that tackling what remains to do awaits finishing the listings on author pages. Once that is done, I feel we can move ahead on several fronts:


 * (a) Definitive format on author pages;
 * (b) Scraping and sorting the author page listings so we have have "rough" ToCs for each volume;
 * (c) Troubleshooting the "rough" ToCs, which means various things including proper disambiguation checks, catching omissions, and full set of author pages plus (i.e. we'll need to have an Anonymous listing, and a side issue is whether that is in project space or the Author: namespace);
 * (d) Definitive manual on article titles, which comes down to one main point (sort out which of the small caps wording gets into the page titles, and which doesn't, with the main burden being medieval names).

I think we'll probably need to spread out some detailed ideas over project pages for all this.

But, first, am I making sense? The overview is that we want to get to the situation where proofreaders can create pages that will automatically be linked in, from ToCs and author pages, and will be able to get the "previous" and "next" from the ToCs, with no quibbles, for the easiest possible experience of article creation. There will have to be a big push to get to this point, and I'd like to think that there is consensus about what we're pushing towards.

Charles Matthews (talk) 12:50, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

New DNB WikiProject on Wikipedia
For information: I have set up w:Wikipedia:WikiProject Dictionary of National Biography, since the time has certainly come when there should be a sister-project, and a definite place for collective discussion of the DNB adaptation effort over on WP. Please come and participate. Charles Matthews (talk) 09:35, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Updating the Manual
I have gone into WikiProject DNB/Style Manual and updated material on titles, to reflect better where we stand. This does need further work. It has been suggested to me that there should be a section on when and how to add rational redirects. Charles Matthews (talk) 07:42, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I would agree about the redirects, though feel that it would be best framed with a discussion about disambiguation, including within a whole of site context. — billinghurst  sDrewth  11:48, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
 * It's quite a big area, considering that "redirect" also describes the DNB fragments that send you to articles from variant names. The Manual needs some beefing up to deal with all the hypertext issues we are gradually getting to, with volume ToC format, Author page format also now on the agenda as we get a bit more complete. I'll try to spend further time on it, and make the structure more obvious as well. Charles Matthews (talk) 14:21, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I think that we are better to have the strategic solution, and look to have a bot fix primarily, and then a second semi-auto run through on the non-obvious targets. Phe's scripting for managing author pages indicates that there is scope for validity checking and proper bot cheating. — billinghurst  sDrewth  16:07, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm going to want to come back to Author pages, and in particular scraping our article names off them, very shortly. The current position is that there are L and M of Author:Thompson Cooper to add, followed at some point and somewhere a list of the anonymous articles. And then all the DNB00 and DNB01 articles are listed (somewhere, if you are forgiving about those on subpages which are caught on the Magnus tool, and whatever omissions I need to apologise for in advance). This does open up new fronts, as I have said before. In particular I thought we could look if the three 1901 Supplement volumes could now be posted, because a testbed of scraping and sorting the entire DNB00 listing would be to sort the DNB01 names somehow and create three volume ToCs for the Supplement with much less pain than in the past. Charles Matthews (talk) 21:05, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
 * So now Author:Thompson Cooper is now complete (I think) if messy, at 48K and the longest DNB list at over 1400 biographies. This is the "worst case" for author page format, and I'm going to start a thread on Author talk:Thompson Cooper for those who want to experiment with various format options. Charles Matthews (talk) 08:19, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Way forward on categories?
I was working on Category:DNB No WP, which is much improved by the bug fix (thanks ThomasV); and I've added a LargeCat ToC (thanks Pathoschild). I found Palmes, Bryan (DNB00), a typical instance of an article for WP usage (twice an MP); how should I categorise it here, though? Category:British politicians is full of author pages, and the same is apparently true for related categories. I don't want to start a big drive to categorise if there is going to be resistance. Am I BOLD? Do I decide that Categories has to be created at last? Or do I start another round of the "topics" discussion at the Scriptorium? I'm certainly not going to start a corner of the category system just for the DNB, having argued in general terms against such things in the past. Charles Matthews (talk) 08:23, 29 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Why wouldn't we point at Category:Categories, or are you meaning something else for the creation of the category. To your former comment, is it that you do not think that the author ns pages and the main ns articles should not be in the same category?  What is it that we are looking to try to separate?  To the doing, I don't think that it would need to be anything that would require further conversation, as I would think look at the history of WS that the discussion has been had. — billinghurst  sDrewth  11:41, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, one issue is the tie to namespaces, or at least in the oblique form that "category X contains in practice pages of a certain type". There is more than one way to set up a category system. The "German" or deWP system relies much more than what enWP does on being able to intersect categories. I don't like some of that in detail, but here I think it would help clarify things. It would get us away from having to think about a biography as either by nature a mainspace text or something to be classified via its topic, a person. Category:British politicians is something one might want to search in various ways (also an author page, also a DNB page, also nineteenth century). Charles Matthews (talk) 17:59, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
 * [mounting his hobby-horse] We have this well covered I think. We already have a subjective, topical, intersecting, method of categorisation, possibly the most elaborate ever devised, it certainly has the greatest number of enthusiastic workers and users. I'm not exaggerating here, I'll give another clue: the DNB project is already populating these categories. Any DNB article, or other biographical text, will meet the 'within two-clicks' criteria* for a huge number of topics and possible paths of enquiry. *Wise words that are achievable ideal, with a bit of thought, and never far from my thoughts since I read them here. Here are someone else's, if a method of indexing is redundant it is only likely to cause confusion. cygnis insignis 14:40, 30 September 2010 (UTC)


 * If you are implying what I think you are, then you advocate the chicken and I the egg (if that is not disrespectful of a bird of your distinction). If we are to rely on WP categorisation, then articles have to be created over there, the process I'd like to promote. So is it egg first or chicken? Charles Matthews (talk) 21:20, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Using intersects What are trying to achieve/present/differentiate? — billinghurst  sDrewth  12:56, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Politicians by nationality not author template
 * Politicians by nationality with author template


 * I'm trying to develop the point of view that WS does need big categories such as Category:British politicians. A category such as w:Category:Members of the pre-1707 Parliament of England is interesting because it encodes expert knowledge (something major happened in 1707), and you would not typically do as well with intersecting with birth dates (say). That is the snag with the intersecting approach: expert knowledge does not reside in the category system. Bad for zoology (say). For WS we should be able to fix that by saying "a portal on MPs from a given period would be fine: we don't need to import enWP's category system, but we'll develop another way." This is now where I'd like to head. Charles Matthews (talk) 15:42, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Master lists
My ideas on these are now set out on a project page: WikiProject DNB/Master lists. It is now a matter of greater urgency, given the starting of Dictionary of National Biography, 1901 supplement, to get the DNB01 articles listed. So that that subproject will start with good ToCs, I mean. So I'm putting in time on scraping the names off the author pages: no need for others to duplicate that. Charles Matthews (talk) 09:49, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Format on author pages
Further to the welcome appearance of Dictionary of National Biography, 1901 supplement, we need to talk about some format issues:


 * If the DNB01 links are routinely piped as the DNB00 links are, then we presumably should be flagging the edition in author page listings. One way would be to use as standard a semi-colon heading within the DNB section (thus not creating a subsection).
 * We should have a template to do the piping, because at the very least it makes list handling much simpler. Would it be OK to call this DNB01 lkpl? Also we'd need DNB01 link as the version displaying the full reference.

Charles Matthews (talk) 07:23, 7 October 2010 (UTC)


 * The template issue is now handled. And there are volume ToCs up for the supplement: things move on apace. The tracking category for DNB01 text on WP is w:Category:Articles incorporating DNB01 text without Wikisource reference, which currently has just ten articles to create. Charles Matthews (talk) 07:09, 9 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Volume II articles of 1901 Supplement are complete. Eight articles to go... Volume III text layer missing, Volume I awaiting upload.JamAKiska (talk) 12:54, 19 October 2010 (UTC)


 * With regard to templates, I would rather have less templates though with more options, rather than by having more templates. For example have rather than  Alternatively if people do not like that idea, I would prefer to create an underlying template that picks up the options.  I would favour more/specific templates where there is value in having the templates, eg. how many works utilise DNB01...?  What value can people see in having specific templates, what extra information do we want or what do we want to know about things that are specifically about the individual volumes? — billinghurst  sDrewth  09:31, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

An obvious remark
Dates later than 1900 should not appear in DNB00 articles. I'm onto this as a way of checking that should be run. It's particularly relevant to the way I work, but apparently not solely my problem. Very often updates in later editions are adding references appearing in the early twentieth century. Charles Matthews (talk) 10:16, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Matching tool for Category:DNB No WP
This is another Magnus Manske tool: see here for initial Q and edit the browser line to put in any letter to replace Q. The run for Q is mercifully short, and it identifies one hit, for Quarles, John (DNB00), as an existing Wikipedia article. I'm leaving that for demonstration purposes, therefore. For other letters, leave the tool to itself and it will run through DNB biographies not yet matched with WP articles for that letter. As Magnus comments, slow but thorough. Charles Matthews (talk) 06:23, 24 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I have added it to the Category page for each letter. — billinghurst  sDrewth  11:07, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Seems to be remarkably useful. Also somewhat touchy, though, as the toolserver can be. Smith names are so common it can take a long time on one. It should work better once the backlogs on common letters are cut down. Charles Matthews (talk) 12:09, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Upgraded: you can now use two initial letters, to narrow down for the longer listings. Charles Matthews (talk) 11:34, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Further wizardry: tool has been adapted to the Catholic Encyclopedia articles. See Wikisource talk:WikiProject Catholic Encyclopedia Upgrade. Charles Matthews (talk) 08:11, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

DNB redirects: categories and accounting
I mean the DNB's own redirects such as More, Roger (DNB00). It would probably be better if they were not in Category:DNB biographies but in a category of their own. And they show up in counting articles, I believe. They can and should be linked to WP: why not? Charles Matthews (talk) 09:58, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Agreed: they need to be handled differently. If I recall correctly, we originally decided to not include them at all, except as inline data in the TOC. However, I now believe that we need them as separate tiny little articles, just as in the example, merely as a matter of consistency, and also to enable us to write a an automated "coverage" tool for pagespace. I propose that we add a "redirect" parameter to template:DNB00. This would take the page out of that category and the "no author" category. -Arch dude (talk) 15:19, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

I wouldn't say we "need" them now, but they are going to be a part of making the hypertext version. Charles Matthews (talk) 21:34, 25 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Thoughts
 * I have been manually adding Category:DNB See as per a very early discussion. It is not a major issue to amend DNB00 to allow for an extra parameter to choose between adding Category:DNB biographies and Category:DNB See, nor to convert the pages that use See at this point in time.  The tricky bit will be to collect those that have been missed, as we would need to be looking for a (DNB00) biography that is not directly linked from one of the 63 main ns ToC pages.  Not sure that we got a lot of benefit, beyond article separation, by adding the parameter, as people will need to know what it means, how to use it on the rare occasions, and they could just as easily manually add.  Note that it will NOT affect the no contributor and I would have to think about whether we can tie the two parameter tests together functionally.
 * I haven't traditionally listed the field on the page, though don't see that it matters particularly either way
 * While I don't wikilink to these referring/pointer pages ("redirect" has too many local connotations) from our ToC pages, when we changed to transclusion, I ended up doing them and have them in the general prev/next run. — billinghurst  sDrewth  03:29, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Having a think, we might be able to do something with the  field.  Something along the lines of WHERE CONTRIBUTOR = see (or whichever unique keyword) that it puts the DNB See category, this would both move it out of the NO CONTRIBUTOR category, and also put them into the referral category. No impact upon the DNB biographies category. — billinghurst  sDrewth  11:29, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

I'll comment that we are overdue a manual of style for the volume ToCs (what to include, format). I don't create the referring pages, nor do I use them as "previous" or "next"; but the interpolation of such pages in sequence as they are created between articles that have already been created can go on in the background. Charles Matthews (talk) 06:46, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I add the "redirect" parameter to Template:DNB00. If this parameter is set, the article is added to Category:DNB redirects instead of Category: DNB biographies, and it is not added to most certain content-oriented maintenance categories. -Arch dude (talk) 17:51, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I have undone the change. As I mentioned above, I see misunderstanding using the term "redirect" which has a the common parlance of wikimedia, and I am not comfortable with that potential conflict for misunderstanding. Also, as I also mentioned above, I see a better means to manage the direction aspect and the contributor aspect in the one hit.  I also think that it is a premature to make the decision about DNB biographies category and to remove the SEE articles from that category without a better understanding of what was the purpose and how we look to manage the corpus of the articles. — billinghurst  sDrewth  22:54, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
 * To continue the discussion. Category:DNB biographies was created to house all articles relating to DNB, not just those that were the articles themselves, noting that as the articles are not subpages that this is the only ready means to produce the articles.  If we are going to split out the referring articles then do we need to maintain a complete list, or to have a complete list available somewhere, and how do you propose to have the category hierarchy?  Or does having the categories just duplicate what is available from the main ns and the category itself with the dual listing is redundant? — billinghurst  sDrewth  08:55, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I did not realize that we had not reached consensus. I am primarily concerned with the fact that the "see" articles are contaminating the maintenance categories, and my modification solves this problem. I suggest that we address your two points as follows:
 * modify the parameter name from "redirect" to "xref." I do not like the word "see" as a parameter name as I think it is confusing. More generally, parameter names should be nouns, not verbs.
 * modify the category to be "DNB cross-references."
 * make both "DNB biographies" and "DNB cross-references" subcategories of "DNB articles." We can also have a subcategory for other DNB mainspace pages such as the TOCs.
 * Thanks. -Arch dude (talk) 13:28, 1 November 2010 (UTC)


 * So within Category:DNB, Category:DNB biographies actually stands for "DNB content" or "DNB texts"? In due course, we'd also want to include the index pages in the volumes, and there's a memoir in vol.63 also. So one approach would be to rename that top holding category for actual DNB text content, and have various subcategories within it? Charles Matthews (talk) 13:32, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Charles, you seem to be reacting to Billinghurst, not to me. my proposal is to create the category "DNB articles" as a subcategory of "DNB." "DNB articles" would be the supercategory of a set of subcategories that will include all mainspace DNB articles, and each mainspace DNB article will be in exactly one of these subcategories, although any article may be in other categories in different hierarchies. The initial two subcategories will be "DNB biographies" and "DNB cross-references." One-off articles such as the memoir in vol.63 and the odd little article at the end of vol. 01 may be placed directly in "DNB articles." -Arch dude (talk) 17:55, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Five figure milestone
WikiProject DNB/Statistics: the project passed 10,000 articles early on Friday (UTC). Charles Matthews (talk) 21:20, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Congratulations, Charles! (Well, Charles, 95+% and the rest of us, 5-%.) Since there are <30K articles, we (i.e., Charles) are more than one-third done with the most fundamental part of the project. -Arch dude (talk) 22:40, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * ADude, there are some other great performers in that space; so while CM is just like a master machine, we have some great apprentice machines, JamAKiska, there too who need us to dip our lids to them. — billinghurst  sDrewth  03:31, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

It's a coming of age, certainly: no cake, but a new project page at WikiProject DNB/FAQ on the way. In numbers, I do about two-thirds of additions, but I'm sure I put in less than half the hours worked on the project. To underline that, I know that whatever the notional article #10000 was, it wasn't one of mine. Charles Matthews (talk) 08:05, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Congratulations…on hitting the critical mass, and thanks for guiding the trek! JamAKiska (talk) 11:19, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

ODNB ids
It is going to turn out to be useful to have the identifiers on the ODNB site http://www.oxforddnb.com/ recorded somewhere, for each of our DNB articles. My question is, where and in what form? I suppose there might be objections (non-free) to including this information with the articles? For the WP end of this project, though, we want to get on top of matching articles to ids as well as to biographies here (it seems that Dsp13 has already done plenty in this direction). We are getting into a triangular situation, then, and this is likely to be reinforced by development of w:Template:ODNBweb. What is the right way to go? Charles Matthews (talk) 15:57, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Personal opinion is to include  as a parameter in the DNB00 header at this point in time. It will do nothing, but it will break nothing.  If/when we decide to do something, and how we decide to do something with this data, then we can address that and know that we have prepopulated articles to do so. — billinghurst  sDrewth  07:57, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Flexibility in the plan, I like it ! JamAKiska (talk) 11:32, 11 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Just to report that w:Template:ODNBweb has been partially upgraded now. This is really a WP issue, naturally; but with a further upgrade it could populate a maintenance category (DNB articles needed to provide a free alternative). The actual business of integrating the existing w:Template:DNBfirst into w:Template:ODNBweb in optimal fashion has been mooted at w:WT:WP DNB. Exactly how to do all this is still up for grabs. Charles Matthews (talk) 07:06, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

An Index page absence
After some searching, I couldn't find the page like Index:Dictionary of National Biography. Sup. Vol II (1901).djvu but for Vol I. All a bit first-day-at-school. Any clues? Charles Matthews (talk) 19:35, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

The Status, found on Talk:Dictionary of National Biography, 1901 supplement reflects the present situation. Only volume II is available to proofread at this time. Vol. III is in the "needing OCR" as the images look letter perfect, but am still not getting any text. Vol. I has neither images or text. JamAKiska (talk) 23:51, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Supp. Volume III index page is available for proofreading. Both sources for [Index:Dictionary of National Biography. Sup. Vol I (1901).djvu] had missing pages or unreadable & blurry text. Created a composite pdf document of page images from these on-line sources and attempted upload at IA this morning. Did not see the file in the processing queue after upload or afternoon reload. JamAKiska (talk) 22:07, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Supp. Volume I index page is available for proofreading. JamAKiska (talk) 03:08, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

1901 Supplement.
All three volumes of 1901 Supplement are available for proofreading. All of the articles previously forwarded have been migrated. JamAKiska (talk) 17:38, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Author page headers
I have boldly made DNB into a disambiguation page, to reflect the presence of DNB01. Now we should agree on Manual handling of the headers for the DNB sections on author pages. I think where there is more than one edition (typically DNB00 and DNB01 articles) the header should be "Contributions to the DNB", with a subsection as a semi-colon header for the DNB01 articles (could be an actual subsection, but in any case there should be an agreed way to help future automation). Where there is just one edition it can be like "Contributions to the Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900", or with the Supplement link. In any case we should move to clear up past tentative efforts to get the author pages under control. Charles Matthews (talk) 07:06, 3 January 2011 (UTC)


 * To me they are all DNB and I haven't seen a need to differentiate further. I suppose that means that I am more interested in making sure that they are listed, and no particular opinion about drill downs. — billinghurst  sDrewth  13:55, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

George Smith Memoir
Expect to have the memoir proofread later this week. My intention is to transclude this memoir, as is, onto the page created from the link found here. This memoir, 39 pages in length, is sub-divided into nine parts using roman numerals. JamAKiska (talk) 13:44, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Prefatory Note to 1901 Supplement
Would like for it to go here. And would like to add a link to the George Smith memoir from this location as well. JamAKiska (talk) 01:26, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

DNB errata
In a trial to display the errata from Index:Dictionary of National Biography. Errata (1904).djvu with the respective article, I have mirrored something that I have been doing for A Compendium of Irish Biography and created a means to append the corrected data to the article. Now it is still in the play zone, so we can evaluate its effectiveness and tweak it further if we lke down. We have it working for erratum on one page, and I have coded it for where that goes to a second page, though not yet tested. Issues to resolve, names of parameters we may wish to change them to something shorter like p1, p2, ... When we transclude the text, the references to line numbers is no longer current, so it may be worth having a rider that trails onto the end of the template that explains such. Probably other stuff that I haven't considered. — billinghurst  sDrewth  15:29, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

The shorthand used in the Errata to help the reader locate the amendment will require slight adjustments for us made easy by transclusion. By way of example, see 1904 Errata p. 50 at the page bottom of the original, specifically the Campbell, Frederick W. article. The original page only includes the line number entry, 15f.e. for this article, as the page and column were indicated in previous entries found higher on that page. The next errata page 51 contains another entry for this article. JamAKiska (talk) 17:26, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Greaves makes for a curious example, but it's fortunate in that I didn't have to look any deeper to demonstrate that messing with this can easily go wrong: 'error happens' ; the column has some relevance, if someone checks the scan of the source; I see f.e., for example, is not an abbreviation of "for example"; and without counting, I think the line number is accurate (a line ends in a full stop, not where it wraps on the printed page), but I didn't check how this is counted where an article goes onto the next page I checked, it restarts for each page. Any entry with an erratum should link to that section from the notes. cygnis insignis 19:44, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

The first page of each chapter in the Errata has that information - namely l.l. for "last line", and f.e. meaning "from end," as in counting backwards from the column end. I have yet to encounter an Errata entry which applies to more than a single page in any particular volume, until now See Edwin Sir Humphrey. The absence of those abbreviations indicates counting lines from the top of the column. Perhaps the way forward is to leave a simple word like "Errata" in the notes to help alert the reader to the information contained at the conclusion of the article to include the link to the appropriate errata page which the current template provides.

Your example also brings up a great point. A few months back I was proofing pages in the early volumes when I discovered that I was undoing some Errata adjustments made by another editor. So sheepishly I undid my edit to re-establish the "improved version," as I recognized that while in good faith I was editing the text and hopefully adding value, I was also doing so without all the facts. I now look through the edit history before joining into the editing fray. Which brings up a great topic for discussion. Namely, when is it a "reasonable" time in the edit cycle to include links and Errata adjustments? to help others avoid situations like this in the future. JamAKiska (talk) 00:24, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The emboldened comment is my point, I saw what it is "not" because I read that information at the errata. And the 'way forward'—the work-around to the work-around—is my solution: don't mess with it, preserve the integrity of what we transcribing, link back from the notes section of the header.
 * The example was not mine. If someone incorporated the errata, made corrections, the text no longer matches the scan; that is all that is required, no more. I realise that this leaves little opportunity to be erudite, knowing with the BOH-S, and demonstrate our talents as clever editors of text, it is as boring as bat shit from that perspective and incredibly frustrating for wikipedians, but that is not what libraries do. If the same text appears at wikipedia, which it will, it can be corrected there with another ref to the errata volume. Dig this: there will, eventually, be very few reasons for a reader to use the DNB text here. The timescale is 'when someone gets around to it'. cygnis insignis 21:25, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

This DNB article,, addresses previous concerns by preserving the original. The note alerts the reader’s attention to the appendage, and there are currently no links. Would like to add the text below to this template to aid the first time viewer.


 * The formatted three columns found nearest the left margin provide the specific location on the DNB biography page where the original text is to be adjusted, in this case page 37 of the volume. There are only two columns from which to chose, and the text line is determined usually counted from the column top. In this example the counting starts at the bottom of the 1st column and is located 22 or 9 lines f.e. (see also l.l.) These text adjustments can be replacements, omissions, or insertions. In this example there are two text replacements. When there is no indication of the page or column immediately adjacent, use the first value found above in the respective column.

JamAKiska (talk) 05:04, 5 February 2011 (UTC)


 * We could inhale the erratum into the Notes field, which means that the article retains the initial publishing integrity; however, it being errata rather than an extension of the data, I am reasonably comfortable with a segregated transclusion. If we transclude, we can easily argue that the article shall remain as is.  To the wikilink on the page number, at the moment it goes through to the Page:, I think that we should amend that so that it points to the main ns transclusion of the errata pages, and we can poke in the wikilink.  So that may be something like &#91;&#91;Dictionary of National Biography. Errata (1904)/Volume 23#141|p. 141&#92;&#93; — billinghurst  sDrewth  05:30, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Re the key, there are a number of ways to do this, 1) add in key to each transcluded component, 2) add a hover over each code, 3) link through to a page that explains the key as part of the template. All have strengths and weaknesses. — billinghurst  sDrewth  05:33, 5 February 2011 (UTC)


 * was an early view of the Notes option, and went the final step to include the errata. The next option,, includes a brief note to alert the reader of errata(um) YET preserves the integrity of the original AND provides this additional research for those whose interest is accuracy.
 * While the one line Errata entries fit nicely into the notes section, not all erratum footprints are so easily managed. A hybrid approach that includes hover keys as well as a detailed example, available via link or transclusion, would go a long way to help editors work their way through this problem successfully. JamAKiska (talk) 14:03, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

I have amended the template and you will see that it now has the key embedded after the page break label. It just seemed easier. — billinghurst  sDrewth  02:09, 6 February 2011 (UTC)


 * The template seems to be working well in 5 volumes. The offset of 10 is good through volume 28, thereafter it tapers to 4 in the Supplementals. The link leads to the correct page in the errata volume. George indicated he would take this on eventually. JamAKiska (talk) 12:21, 7 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Kind of hard to build a range of offsets when the Index: pagelist itself doesn't reflect the actual offsets either! :-ο Anyway, I swapped in the "fixed" template to the main position already - hopefully nobody even noticed that change - and have since managed to "redo" offset 10, didn't know where exactly offsets lower than 8 started/ended so I just jumped to the end where djvu page 293 & higher have an offset of 4 now. Please respond on the errata template's talk page - this gap thing going on here displays way too weird for me. — George Orwell III ( talk ) 17:03, 7 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Nicely done, pages are properly numbered in each of the four offset regions. would provide a good example for errata straddling 2 pages if you are looking for one. I’ll add a note to the errata djvu file to give you a heads up when this file gets replaced to fill in the missing pages. JamAKiska (talk) 23:43, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Status

 * The following Volumes Errata pages are proofread, have links installed, and are ready for transclusion: 1, 2, 6, 50, 51, 55, 57. The Errata have been included into all written articles in Volumes 23, 28, and the Suppl. vols 1 & 2. MISSING PAGES - The offset dropping by six indicates 6 missing pages, only five of which have text: text pages 170 & 171 (last 2 pages of V. 30); text pages 193 & 196 (1st and last pages of V. 36 - not much text on p. 196); and finally text page 197 (lead page for V. 37). Will see if I can locate a complete volume prior to resuming the effort to reduce subsequent page moves. I need to leave it at this point of progression for a few days as other concerns are more pressing. JamAKiska (talk) 15:11, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't know if this was for my benefit or not but whatever you folks wind up doing and the resulting change in page ranges it may or may not cause; any adjustment(s) needed to the template would not be major. I did not use coding that only relied on the typical plus or minus the offset # from a base page # but rather wrote it to use equal to or greater than an opening page # and less than the closing page # of the range of vol. pages in question before any offest is calculated (+ or -) for display/link purposes. Carry on & let me know when things need-a-changin' — George Orwell III ( talk ) 15:29, 11 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Found a better scan of 1904 Errata that has all 300 pages of text. This Errata volume will add eight pages to the page count, six of which will include text (the 6th is the final page of the Errata for the 1901 Supplement Volume III). The only down side to this move is the loss of the title page which in the replacement volume is a blank page; however, it does retain the Title page with identical markings on the cover. Upon insertion, all text pages up until page 169 will align. 42 page moves will be required following insertion, beginning with text page 170 or djvu page 180. I will adjust the few pages of links that require adjustment during this move. JamAKiska (talk) 18:51, 14 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Replaced Errata djvu file with complete volume. Offset is now set at 10 throughout. JamAKiska (talk) 14:01, 15 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Erratum template adjusted to expanded djvu file…thanks George…initial look is favorable…will poke and prod for a couple of days as I begin to incorporate these links into completed volumes. The first ten volumes are ready (23 & 28 already in use), will prep other volumes based upon DNB progress page. JamAKiska (talk) 23:20, 15 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Errata template installed in volumes 1, 2, 6, 18, 23, 28, 47-60, 62, Suppl. vol. I and II (written articles in 18, SI & SII) . Discovered a few articles where the editors had already included the errata or had clarifying notes to that effect. These I left in place. Will continue with errata installs. 17 & 22 will be the next group. JamAKiska (talk) 16:11, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Supplementary list in prefatory - linking
At Page:Dictionary of National Biography. Sup. Vol I (1901).djvu/14 and the following page there is a list of people who died int he first six months of 1901, and were indicated as going to have biographies added. Do we link the list of names? If so, do we link to future articles, or to other places within WS, eg. author pages? — billinghurst  sDrewth  03:52, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

John Farmer musician made DNB12. JamAKiska (talk) 04:34, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

1912 Supplement
Have located volumes II and III of DNB12. Have yet to do a full page scan, but initial look seems as favorable as DNB01 scans. Am pausing awaiting location of good volume I from this second and final supplement from Smith, Elder & Co. JamAKiska (talk) 17:41, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Second Supplement published 1912 in three volumes (DNB12): [Volume I][Volume II][Volume III] Only blemishes I saw were author pages in volume I. The errata are included in the front of each volume, and complete index pages are found at the end. Would organize along the lines of First Supplement (DNB01). The file sizes range from 34 to 42Mb. JamAKiska (talk) 13:56, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Page check complete on volumes I, II & III of DNB12, all pages present & images are clearly readable. The addition of these three volumes will require an adjustment to the DNB index template. JamAKiska (talk) 19:44, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Wikilinks to works
Some pointers to works that have been added or are around for wikilinking from the body or ref section. +++
 * Greyfriars Chron. redirects to Chronicle of the Grey friars of London, and sometimes there are page refs
 * Men of the Time (11th edition) (underway)
 * Alumni Oxonienses parts available, and happy to create articles as needed, see
 * Men-at-the-Bar parts available, and happy to create articles as needed
 * Dictionary of Australasian Biography (underway)
 * A Compendium of Irish Biography (underway)

Also looking at a getting Portal:Notes and Queries populated as we have located all the volumes. Next to get done is Gentleman's Monthly. If there are other works that we should be looking to locate, then do let me know. I am thinking through whether this should sit separately as part of a Portal, or as a separate project, or both. Would like to hear your feedback on this. — billinghurst  sDrewth  02:59, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

List of contributors
On Wikipedia I created a list of contributors, using the DNB author templates which I transwikied some time ago, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_contributors_to_the_Dictionary_of_National_Biography.

It should be possible to cut-and-paste that page straight back here, if it would provide a useful reference, and indication of which author pages are and are not done. Rich Farmbrough, 00:23 21 May 2011 (GMT)


 * There'll be various comments. I would say that not all the contributors are notable; but exactly which ones are is not so easy to determine. Nor are they all easy to identify. Plenty of work has gone on to remedy that, but I believe (for example) that we don't know whether the J. H. Thorpe is the one who was Jeremy Thorpe's grandfather. Charles Matthews (talk) 07:42, 21 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Rich, I am hoping that you have already seen Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/List of Contributors and have a look at the talk page to where we have plenty of identification. I cannot say that I have been back to much work there more recently. — billinghurst  sDrewth  10:10, 22 May 2011 (UTC)